Spence charting passage to two Indian Five Stars

Ruwanthi ABEYAKOON

EXPANSION: Aitken Spence Hotel management has expanded into the Indian leisure sector through the construction of new hotels in India.

The management has signed an agreement to manage two 5-star hotels which are under construction in New Delhi.

"One is with extensive banquet and meeting facilities. The room capacity is to be improved within the next couple of years. The other hotel is to due for completion in October/November 2007," Malin Hapugoda Managing Director, Aitken Spence Hotel Managements (Pvt) Ltd said.

In Kerala they have teamed up with an Indian company and purchased 15 acres of land overlooking a vast expanse of water to construct a unique 50-room luxury resort including floating villas and spas.

"The designing of the hotel will be handled by Sri Lankan architects. This is the first Heritance brand hotel in the Indian sub-continent and will be managed by Aitken Spence Hotel Management," Hapugoda said.

"Another project has been undertaken by the management in Madurai. A 80-room resort will be constructed on an extensively landscaped garden with guest facilities. This is scheduled to be operational by mid 2007," he explained.

Hapugoda also pointed out that the management has been offered many projects which will be finalised immediately.

Meanwhile several projects are being implemented here as well. They have invested US$ 12 million for reconstruction of the tsunami-affected Triton and US$ 6 million to develop Kandalama Hotel.

Aitken Spence Hotels have been the pioneers in taking Sri Lankan hotels into Maldives in 1993 and at present have successfully constructed four resorts.